[Lemmy]

Back in the Neverwinter Nights 2 days, I had a chat with one of the main developers. I forgot his name, sorry. But anyway, I wasn't exactly happy that the editor didn't have much included. It's far smaller than the one in NWN, and a lot of the stuff that are included isn't good. He countered it and said fans have made a lot of great stuff for NWN1, including CEP (Community Expansion Pack) with lots of extra stuff. That's fair enough, but my biggest issue is that we didn't pay for an editor without any content in it. Fan made stuff is fun, but what are we supposed to do until then? And keep in mind when we made modules for the game, we had to include all the custom stuff we used. It was fine with CEP in NWN1, but CEP was a compilation of all the best stuff the fans had made and wasn't released until long after the game was out. Over a year or two, if I'm not mistaken. Were we supposed to wait that long before we made stuff in NWN2? If we grabbed what we needed from the community, all we ended up with was forcing players to download the same stuff over and over and over again in different micro-compilations. That's why I spent more than four years in NWN1 and less than four weeks in NWN2. (of course if you got the game just for the game, that's fine enough. But I'm talking about all the people who bought it for the editor.)

This was long before DLC was a concept, but you get the idea. These days DLC is common, but they are still doing the same mistake as NWN2. DLC should add to the game, not finish it. Mass Effect 2 is one of the biggest issues here. The latest DLC as far as I know finish up the story and prepares for ME3. Why couldn't they finish up the story in the vanilla game? (note: I couldn't be arsed to play through ME2, but I do know what the DLC and ME3 is about.)

I wish someone could take chances and make DLC that actually expands the game for a change. We used to get expansions with entire new campaings, so why can't we do that with DLC? I love Fallout: New Vegas, so let's use that as an example. We already have a rather large map to play around in, but there's plenty of space to increase the size a bit. They could add an NPC in one city (or add to an existing, useless NPC's conversation) and start off a scenario that takes the player through several cities and outposts, ending in a new dungeon with new texture, monsters and all that. It could feel like a long campaign, but all they do is add a few conversations and a new dungeon. Instead we are lucky enough if they add the dungeon, and if they do, it's usually small and boring.

Here's a crazy idea: What if they made a huge campaign and released it as episodic DLC? So using New Vegas an example, we could get Episode 1 and travel to a new dungeon somewhere. It's not too big, but should take an hour or two to finish. It leaves with a cliffhanger, so we travel to a new dungeon in Episode 2 and continue the DLC story. We have to get all ten episodes to finish the campaign, and ten episodes lasting two or three hours each is quite a bit. Once all of them are released, they could sell them combined as an expansion. Both online and in stores. That way they can take their time and build a large expansion, but make money along the way and give players what they want. Each episode should be stand-alone with limitations, so you can get just one episode and explore the dungeon if you want. But you won't get the campaign or rewards. (you can still find new stuff from loot, though.)